


The Seventh Loser

by lesbaliens



Category: IT (1990), IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adult Losers Club (IT), Bald Bill, Body Horror, Closeted Character, He respects women, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mild Gore, Real Stan wouldn't do this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 11:33:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14592126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbaliens/pseuds/lesbaliens
Summary: Feathers fell onto the floor, all of which could have been named and identified by the curly haired Jewish boy whose disembodied head presently sat on the second shelf, surrounded by the array of yogurts and mini bottles of alcohol kept there. His face was unchanged by time, only fifteen years old. About as old as he would have been the last time he had been seen by the Losers. The same good old Stan Uris with his curls and his kippah and the ring of scars around his face. All that was missing was the rest of him. His eyes remained closed and a dark thick liquid pooled around his thin birdlike neck.





	The Seventh Loser

All through dinner and the night, the six Losers knew something was amiss. Of their small group, only six of the seven had succeeded in showing up. The seventh being one Stanley Uris who, in the Losers memories of him, had never been late to anything in his life. Mike had told them he would call again, but insisted they give Stan until the next day to show up though he too had the same uneasy feeling as the rest.   
  
The night went on and still, there was no word from Stan. The club had gathered in the library, all six standing around the help desk as Mike made the phone call to the Uris house in Atlanta. He was met with a voicemail at first, the sound of Stan’s recorded voice coming through. Mike dialled again, the phone rang three times before someone on the other end picked up.   
  
“Hello? Stan?”   
  
“Tell that loser that if he’s not coming, I’ll go down there to wherever the hell he is and kick his ass!” Richie shouted. “We all managed to show up!”

“What… What did you  _ say _ to him?” came a soft voice from the other end of the line. A voice that certainly did not belong to his childhood friend.   
  
“Hello? Who is this? Can you put Stanley Uris on the phone?” Mike requested, watching as the other Losers went on with their business. Ben and Beverly chatting with one another, across the counter from one another. Bill pacing back and forth, waiting for news on Stan. Richie sitting on the counter with Eddie in a headlock, messing up his hair, both of them laughing.   
  
“Stanley’s dead,” came the voice, quieter this time. Her voice was shaking as she said it. Mike’s eyes widened and his grip on the phone tightened slightly at hearing the news.   
  
“He… Did you say he wa--”

“Dead. Yes, I did say that. This is his wife speaking. Patty Uris,” she clarified, the full name still having meaning to her.   
  
“I… I’m sorry to hear th--”   
  
“He killed himself. Two nights ago he cut his wrists right after you phoned. It was you who called, wasn’t it?” She didn’t wait for a reply before continuing. “He went upstairs to take a bath just after he hung up the phone. What did you say? What did you say to make him to it?” Patty demanded and there was a certain power in her shaking voice.

“I… I asked him to come home. I’m sorry. I won’t call again.” Mike didn’t know what else to do then as he listened to the woman on the other end breaking down, crying over her husband. He brought the phone away from his face slowly and hung up, setting it back down with a grim expression. He had just widowed this woman and killed one of his best friends with a phone call. It was Bill who asked first.    


“What happened? Is Stan coming?” The other five quit what they were doing, all their attention on Mike now.   
  
“Stan’s dead,” Mike replied bluntly and the others let out a collective quiet gasp. “He cut his wrists in the bathtub… Right after I called him. That was his wife on the phone.”   
  
“He… He’s dead?” Richie was the one who asked, releasing Eddie from his headlock. “Stan’s dead? He can’t be.” Eddie took a step back to fix his hair and adjust his glasses while Richie spoke. “That.. That’s not true, is it Mike?”

“Rich… He’s telling the truth.” Bill stepped over to him to put a hand on Richie’s shoulder. They had been best friends after all. Even before the Losers Club, there had been Richie and Stan. The others stayed quiet for a moment in a silent remembrance of Stanley Uris.    
  
“What do we do now? Are we even gonna be able to fight It with just us six?” Ben asked after the moment had passed. “Lucky seven only works when you have all seven.”   
  
“Of course it will.” But Beverly’s voice lacked its usual fire. “Right Mike?”   
  
“I think we’ll be okay. I don’t know.” He hadn’t accounted for this though he realized now that it had been a possibility the whole time. “I need a drink…” Mike felt like he had just killed a man. He had been the one to make that damned phone call.

The rest of them nodded in agreement, deciding that their own possible deaths was as good a reason as any to drink before noon.

When Mike opened the mini refrigerator, something was certainly wrong. Out from it poured feathers in disgusting bloody clumps. Mike let go of the door in disgust but it stayed open. 

Feathers fell onto the floor, all of which could have been named and identified by the curly haired Jewish boy whose disembodied  _ head _ presently sat on the second shelf, surrounded by the array of yogurts and mini bottles of alcohol kept there. His face was unchanged by time, only fifteen years old. About as old as he would have been the last time he had been seen by the Losers. The same good old Stan Uris with his curls and his kippah and the ring of scars around his face. All that was missing was the rest of him. His eyes remained closed and a dark thick liquid pooled around his thin birdlike neck.   
  
Mike looked inside in horror, the rest of the group standing behind him. “Stan…?” he asked holding the door open but staying as far away from Stan’s head —  _ his head! —  _ as he possibly could. For all Mike knew, it would jump out and bite his arm off.   
  
Almost immediately as he spoke, Not-Stan opened his eyes to look up at the six in front of him. They stared, wide eyed, at the decapitated head of their childhood friend and it stared back, blinking up at them with dead foggy eyes. His face was pale but the scars stood out almost as if they were fresh. His curly hair hung slightly damp against his forehead. Mike could have sworn his heart stopped when he first saw it.

Mike stood in front of the Losers, Beverly almost directly beside him as she stared down Stan’s head with her mouth hanging open. Ben kept a hand on her shoulder, staying close. Bill was on the other side of Mike; even the horror author was disturbed at seeing this. Eddie stood beside him, one hand in his pocket on the inhaler with the other hand on Richie’s jacket sleeve as he took deep shaky breaths. Richie’s face could have been described as similar to  Edvard Munch’s  _ The Scream _ . His mouth hung open almost comically wide and the look in his eyes… It was almost empty. 

A smile twitched on Stan’s lips as if the sight of their combined shock amused him. “Sorry I’m late. Took me awhile to get here didn’t it? Finally decided to join you losers. Well let’s see who’s all here, hm?”    
  
His glassy eyes first landed on Mike who promptly stepped back from the fridge but the door remained open. “Mikey! Good to see you stuck around. What’ve you been doing lately? Getting high and visiting big dead things in the sky, huh? I think you saw some stuff you weren’t supposed to see. You’re playing with fire, Hanlon and you’re gonna burn. Your mama and your daddy got barbequed too. Won’t it be fitting when you go out the same way?” The smile on Not-Stan’s face went from amused to cruel then and Mike looked sick to his stomach. Even after over thirty years, that still hurt.    
  
“Buh-Buh-Buh-Billy boy!” His eyes looked to Bill, mocking his old stutter with a laugh. “Lose a little hair, huh? Big handsome leader my ass, if I had one. But I guess big still applies.” Not-Stan was delighted by this. “Oh, so much to talk about, Bill, it’s been ages.. I could barely remember your face but I mean who could? Your own parents forgot you existed for three whole years. Seems like someone wasn’t the favorite child. If it were you, they wouldn’t have even noticed.”

It didn’t bother Bill so much how he looked. Time hadn’t been the kindest to him and he accepted that. The years after Georgie ( _ that still hurt _ ) hadn’t been so great either but it had gotten a bit better after he had moved. After he had forgotten. And he accepted that. Bill stared blank faced down at Stan’s head, clapping a hand onto Mike’s shoulder.   
  
“How’s it going, Bucky Beaver? Didn’t expect you to show. Thought you’d run farther and faster than any of them but you never did have common sense.” Not-Stan laughed again, looking up at Richie where he stood, every word dropping on the man like a bomb. It would have been different had it not been Stan’s  _ head _ saying all of this. “You’re the biggest loser out of all of us. Bowers and them were right to punch you in the nose and I’ll tell you something Rich. It’s a damn shame they couldn’t beat you normal.”   
  
Richie blanched and his stomach turned, threatening him with vomiting again. It definitely wouldn’t hurt so much if it hadn’t been Stan. Stan who had been his best friend his entire childhood. Who he had taken a punch in the face for on numerous occasions. He swallowed hard, pushing all that down. He had never been good at feelings like that and he turned his gaze elsewhere, fixating on the display of books by William Denbrough.   
  
“Wheezy!” He looked towards Eddie who released Richie’s sleeve instantaneously. “How’s your sex life? Wife any fun for you? I always knew you’d end up with a girl exactly like your mother. Both in size and personality.” He laughed. “Your momma knew about you, didn’t she?” The black goop around Stan’s head began dripping onto the floor. It moved slowly, like molasses, and smelled like death. Eddie couldn’t look away. “She knew you were sick, Eddie. You’re real sick and there’s only one cure for you. Couple of hits and headfirst over the Kissing Bridge should fix you up nice! Sure fixed Adrian Mellon, didn’t it?”

Mike had told them about Adrian Mellon. The gay asthmatic man who had been thrown over the Kissing Bridge. The death that had inspired Mike to call the Losers. God, that terrified Eddie. That scared him right down to his core and his breathing came out in short wheezing gasps as he fumbled for his inhaler in his pocket. He pulled it out and put it in his mouth, squeezing the trigger and taking a deep breath, all the while thinking about whether or not his friends had figured out his secret.

“Hey Bevvy. Daddy says hi. He misses his little girl. And by the way, he  _ loves _ your taste in men. Damn, Tom really does a number on you, doesn’t he?” he asked and his voice was almost sympathetic. “He only does it cause he loves you. You deserve it, Bevvy. And you know you’re really in for it when you get back home. Or are you gonna kill him too?”

Bev’s hand came up to cover her mouth, heart beating frantically in her chest. The death of Alvin Marsh had been ruled accidental. Found dead on the bathroom floor, they decided that he must have slipped. No one suspected his daughter. She had loved her father, as far as they knew. And then later ended up marrying a man exactly like him. She stood frozen to the spot, twisting the wedding ring on her left finger.

Last in the order was Ben who kept his hand firmly on Beverly’s shoulder. “Haystack! Where’s the rest of you? Drowning in a bottle of liquor somewhere?” The dark liquid moved slowly across the floor towards the Losers. The feathers on the floor sizzled and burned as the liquid touched it and Mike took a step back as it neared his shoes. “Pathetic. Lonely without the other half of you? You were still lonely then too. Writing poems for girls who barely notice you.”

He let his hand drop from Bev’s shoulder to his side, not even really aware that he had done it. Ben’s eyes were locked on Stan’s dead face that seemed to be decaying even more by the second. The scars on his face only got redder and redder as they watched the head of Stan rotted, flesh paling more and more every second.

“I’m dead now. I’m in the deadlights just like how I always wanted. We all float down here. We all float and you’ll float too. Don’t you see? I always wanted this. I wanted to go. Ever since you let IT get me.” Stan’s voice grew more frantic as he talked. His skin was grey and his eyes were pearly white, sunken in. The sight was disgusting enough and the smell only made it worse. Some of the red scars around his face opened up, more of the black liquid seeped out.

“Holy shit… Holy shit…” Richie whispered, eyes back on Stanley’s head again as he began to shout.

“You LEFT me down there!” he cried, hair falling out of his head. “YOU LEFT ME! YOU’RE NOT MY FRIENDS! YOU MADE ME GO INTO NEIBOLT! YOU LET HER GET ME!” The black goo dripped from his eyes then, resembling tears but burning the rotten skin. “YOU LET HER GET ME!” It barely even looked like Stan anymore. The voice coming out of Stan’s mouth was distorted and awful as he screamed. The liquid pooled thick and dark on the floor, now a steady flow from Stan as it creeped faster. “YOU LET HER GET ME! YOU DID THIS!”

“Shit. We– We need to go.” Mike finally found his voice and turned to the others as he tried to make himself heard over the screaming. “Grab what you can and run.”

They were quick to gather up some of the information Mike had written down, organized into boxes, and hurried out of the library as fast as they could go, Mike following in the rear to lock the door behind them. They had to stop this. They had to put an end to IT.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to the ever sweet abslander for being my beta


End file.
